School of the Americas

Lesley Gill is Professor of Anthropology and Department Chair, Vanderbilt University. She is the author of Teetering on the Rim: Global Restructuring, Daily Life, and the Armed Retreat of the Bolivian State; Precarious Dependencies: Gender, Class, and Domestic Service in Bolivia; and Peasants, Entrepreneurs, and Social Change: Frontier Development in Lowland Bolivia.

“Lesley Gill has produced an in-depth exposÉ of the militaristic mentality, socioethnic tensions, and outrageous atrocities of the empire’s Praetorian Guard. Insightful and richly researched, a work of superior quality.”-Michael Parenti, author of The Terrorism Trap and The Assassination of Julius Caesar “Lesley Gill’s study of the premier military training operation in the Americas is a treasure trove of histories that will provoke a long overdue debate about the values and limits of U.S. engagement in the region.”-Robin Kirk, author of More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, Drugs, and America’s War in Colombia “Lesley Gill’s The School of the Americas is an ambitious book that provides the reader with a thorough analysis of the School of the Americas (SOA), and the effects of the SOA’s training on the trainees and on two Andean Communities.” - Silvia Borzutzky (Latin American Research Review) “The notion of impunity which Lesley Gill develops with many insights has far-reaching ramifications and consequences. . . . Gill’s clarity appeals to our reason, love of truth, and common human decency. . .” - Bill Griffin (Catholic Worker) “This book is a hugely impressive, detailed, and fascinating cultural history of jazz in Britain and should be recommended not only to cultural historians but also to historians of the Cold War, the British Left, and those interested in race relations and national identity in twentieth-century Britain.” - James J. Nott (American Historical Review) "[B]reathtaking. . . . This book should make one proud to be in the same profession as its author and appalled at the implications of having a U.S. citizenship." - Gavin Smith (Journal of Latin American Anthropology) "[I]n the wake of recent revelations that suspected terrorists captured by CIA and U.S. special forces in Afghanistan and Iraq have been deliberately hidden from the Red Cross, severely tortured and in some cases abused to death, this book remains immediately relevant. The questions at the heart of the controversy over the school -- is the U.S. military teaching the art of atrocity to Latin American soldiers, and do Americans bear responsibility for the horrors that many of the supposedly 'professionalized' graduates of the school have committed? -- take on new meaning as the United States engages in actions that bear a damning resemblance to the dirty wars fought in years past in Central and South America."- Peter Kornbluh (Washington Post Book World) "Gill was able to examine the school's folkways and rhetoric, thanks to glasnost-like levels of administrative cooperation. Lessons in thinking in terms of how to 'kill and maim' opposition and to 'dehumanize' those who persist. Gill then traces the paths of various graduates of the school and links their activities directly to the torture and death of 'Latin American peasants, workers, students [and] human rights activists'--i.e., 'opposition.' " (Publishers Weekly)

• List of Illustrations viiAcknowledgments ixPrologue: The Teflon Assassin xiiiIntroduction: The Military, Political Violence, and Impunity 11. Georgia Not on Their Minds 232. De-Mining Humanitarianism 433. Foot Soldiers of the U.S. Empire 594. Pathways to Power 905. Strategic Alliances 1106. Human Wrongs and Rights 1377. Disordering the Andes 1638. Targeting the " School of Assassins" 198Conclusion: The School of the Americas 233Notes 245References Cited 259Index 271